A couple months ago, I wrote about switching Charlie from cow’s milk to soy milk to address his regular vomiting and constipation issues. After switching to soy, Charlie stopped throwing up, so he probably did have a cow’s milk allergy. Luckily other forms of dairy like yogurt, cheese, etc. don’t seem to bother him, because that would be really sad! The switch to soy didn’t really seem to help his constipation issues, however, and they’ve actually gotten worse.

I never intended to keep Charlie on soy milk long-term because its estrogen-mimicking compounds concern me. There have been studies that suggest eating large quantities of soy may reduce fertility, spur the early onset of puberty, and even inhibit the absorption of certain minerals, so I’d been looking for an alternative milk. I learned about all kinds of different types of milk from anbanan15 in my last post. I was familiar with the more popular options like goat, coconut, rice, and almond, but there’s also hemp, cashew, sunflower, oat, potato, hazelnut, pumpkin seed… apparently you can make a milk out of almost anything!

I asked my friend Hee Won, a nutritionist based out of Los Angeles, what cow’s milk alternative she’d suggest. She told me that she wouldn’t recommend soy milk to any of her patients, and suggested that we try hemp milk or cashew milk instead. I did a little bit of research on the most popular cow’s milk alternatives and their pros and cons — coconut milk tastes great but is high in calories and low in protein, rice milk is the most hypoallergenic but is low in protein and can be constipating, and almond milk tastes great but is also low in protein. Here’s how hemp milk stacks up nutritionally against whole cow’s milk:

This is what I’ve learned about hemp milk:

– made from the seeds of the same plant used to make marijuana! However the seeds don’t contain any THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, so you will not get high.

– Dr. Andrew Weil says it contains all 10 essential amino acids and is a good source of protein for vegetarians

I was warned that Charlie might not like the grassy/earthy taste of hemp milk, so before making the switch I also purchased coconut, rice and almond milk. Of the three, Charlie liked almond milk best because it has a sweet, nutty taste, and I mixed in a little bit of almond, soy, and hemp together for a while until Charlie was drinking all hemp. As far as the taste of hemp milk, it tastes pretty similar to soy milk to me, but I don’t have a very good palate. Charlie is fine with the taste (and the boy does love his milk), and that’s all that matters.

I’m happy with the nutritional content of hemp milk, and am glad to have found an alternative to cow’s milk. There are several different brands on the market, but the most popular seems to be Living Harvest’s Tempt brand, which is what we’ve been using (they even have hemp ice cream!).

Do you feed your LO an alternative to cow’s milk? Would you consider giving your LO hemp milk?

Is raw milk legal in NY? I’m curious how your nutritionist would stack raw cow’s or goat’s milk in the ranking. We get raw milk at our farmer’s market every week and that stuff is wonderful. I understand it has a ton of health benefits.

Great post. I’m a super-taster so I couldn’t do hemp milk because I couldn’t get used to the flavor. We mostly use Almond Milk since Lala won’t drink cows milk. Your starting to make me wonder if it’s because she’s actually lactose intolerant too. The proteins are much more broken down in cheese and yogurt, etc… so maybe THAT’s why she’ll eat those but refuses milk. But seriously, hemp milk sounds incredibly nutritious…

And FWIW, there can be very serious issues for young children with raw milks… I know it’s very hip right now, but there’s a reason that pasturization was invented and many lives have been saved because of it. (Sorry!)

@Arden: Not necessarily. If you look around, there are parents who say their kids were “allergic” to pasteurized milk but are able to digest raw milk, because the pasteurization process kills the good bacteria that help you digest lactose. Here’s one 2005 study that came to the conclusion that kids on farms have fewer allergies in part due to consuming raw milk: http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749%2806%2900651-8/fulltext

I’m totally not trying to be a contrarian, but the authors of that study admit that there is only correlation and no conclusions can be drawn about causation between raw milk and allergies. And who knows, there may be causation but there is also significant risk. I just feel like I have to say this because the risks are a big deal, like babies have died….

As I’ve told someone else here, I think if adults decide that they want to drink raw milk I totally support that, but for babies I’m definitely going to pipe up and say they are a vulnerable population.

Of course I encourage everyone to seek information from reputable sources (like Pawprints did!) to make their own informed decisions and to discuss those decisions with their own pediatrician.

Sorry for the hijack Mrs. Bee. You can delete my comments if you want!

where can you buy hemp’s milk? i don’t think i’ve ever seen it in stores, and i swear california stores carry everything! i’ve been to whole foods, mother’s market, and trader joe’s.

i tried to switch noelle from cow’s milk to almond milk one morning (no other reason than the fact that she gets so gassy on cow’s milk)… and she took one sip and said, “no!” pushed it away, and pointed to cow’s milk. lol – there’s no denying she’s a girl who knows what she wants. maybe i’ll look for hemp and try to mix the two until it becomes just hemp milk.

@Mrs. High Heels: all of the local markets here sell it — they’re not even specialty stores. i bet whole foods has it. if not, you can buy it on amazon or soap.com.

i actually didn’t want to transition to cow’s milk when charlie turned 1, but didn’t know of a better alternative. had i known about hemp milk, i probably would have transitioned him to hemp milk rather than cow’s milk.

LO is allergic to dairy, nuts, goat’s milk, and soy so I asked our pediatrician if milk is even necessary or if I can just supplement the vital nutrients from milk. She told me that as long as LO gets a good amount of liquids, calcium, vitamin D, as well as eats a healthy diet, milk isn’t necessary.

Long story short, LO drinks lots of water, coconut juice (from fresh young coconuts), meat broths and eats chia seeds (in the form of chia pudding) for calcium. I might try some hemp milk after reading this just to see if she’ll drink it.

I’ve also been wondering about switching from cows milk so this post is great for me. I was considering soy for myself and LO in the future but i have also heard about estrogen mimicking compounds… So far I have heard good things about almond milk. we may try that

We do coconut milk for me due to Wonder Baby’s issues. I’d be fine with feeding it to Toddler Girl but she does well on raw cow’s milk. I’ve never come across hemp milk!
@Mrs. Jacks: My husband and I both drank raw milk as little people, as did our parents. I don’t say this as a “we turned out fine” argument, but rather that there is evidence that it helps if your genetically adapted to it. Kids of dairy farmers are fine on raw milk from what I understand. You still need to be sure that it’s from a trusted source, but I don’t feel that I’m risking my daughters health at all.

@autumnlove – i just went to a sprouts today and no hemp milk… but they did have flax milk, which i’ve never heard of! it has 0 grams of protein though.

Christina

guest

July 17, 2012 @ 2:38 am

I buy Living Harvest’s “tempt” brand of hemp milk. I get the vanilla most of the time, and sometimes chocolate. My boys (ages 5 and 7) are not LO… but if we have both hemp milk and cow’s milk in the fridge, they ask me specifically for the hemp milk over the cow’s milk every time.

It’s good stuff for sure… and FYI, it tastes best when served very cold. When we buy cases, we put a couple in the fridge at a time and keep the rest in the cupboard.

As a side note… I am a cashier in a grocery store in southern Oregon, and all our local grocery stores carry hemp milk now, as well as a ton of other hemp products. I have one regular customer who buys hemp milk by the case for her two daughters who are autistic. She says it was recommended by a doctor for its health benefits, and she says that her kids function better since they have replaced cow’s milk with it. I have another customer who buys hemp milk and hemp protein powder regularly, but she says it is for her digestive system, and was also recommended by her doctor. She says that she suffers from severe and painful constipation and that the hemp milk and protein powder are the most effective treatment she’s found.

@yin: awesome! charlie was on soy milk for a couple of months too, and he had no problem switching to hemp!

adam MD

guest

November 3, 2012 @ 11:07 pm

soy oil great for the brain. soy bean tofu or fermented are great proteins. Hemp milk or hemp protein is great too.
Raw milk is very great. you need 90% of your daily protein needs from vergetable source (beans, soy, hemp, lentil, etc) and only 10% from animal sources (like milk, cheese, eggs, meat)
so American diet is imbalanced. frying very bad convert good oil into saturated oil. best oil (fat supplemet in the world ) is olive oil (if you don’t fry it of course dummy). butter is good and margerine is bad bad bad (contains 1% car oil)

adam MD

guest

November 3, 2012 @ 11:11 pm

so conclusion: soy and hemp are very good.
corn and rice and sugar and white flour or bread are all bad.
whole wheat (namely stone groiund bread) is good. fermented proteins are better than proteins (break down protein chains into short peptide chains (the ultimate good protein) like fermented cheese fermented tofu, fermented anything..

all what I mentioned are medical knwoledge exclusive to MDs like me. take it or leave it

lela

guest

November 7, 2012 @ 12:30 pm

Hi! Just wanted to add that it is soooo easy to make your own seed milk. I make hemp, sesame, cashew, add a little bit of maple syrup. It is sooo healthy and yummie! You can always youtube how to make milkg you want.

Becky R

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November 29, 2012 @ 7:41 pm

Thanks for having the side-by-side comparison! My LO is allergic to cow’s milk. She’s still nursing, but I’m starting to introduce some milk alternatives and just bought some hemp milk for her.

Cassia

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January 14, 2013 @ 4:34 pm

@mrs. high heels: I could never find hemp milk in CA (san diego or LA) but I went yesterday to fresh&easy (one in LA, probably in San Diego they carry them too) and they had hazelnut, oat, flaxseed and hemp milk from “Pacific” brand :).

a p

guest

February 25, 2013 @ 2:41 pm

Some Targets carry Tempt

Jamie

guest

March 11, 2013 @ 8:50 am

My LO is 10 1/2 months & we just started hemp milk a few weeks ago. It’s the only thing she will drink besides breastmilk. I can only find it at Whole Foods but they have a very nice selection. I’m a happy mama with a happy baby

Hi there! I’m just wondering which brand of hemp milk you are using? I see the nutrition label above says 100 calories. The one I have (hemp bliss) is only 60 calories. Maybe you’re using the sweetened one? Just curious. I’m planning to give my one year old hemp milk and am looking for one with higher calories/fat. Thanks! : )

dee

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March 27, 2013 @ 4:11 am

my little one is 9 months….I make my own hemp milk and add in a few dates for sweetness. Can I give him this now? I love it and it is great for breastfeeding.

Sarah

guest

April 6, 2013 @ 10:56 am

My son has been on Tempt Vanilla Hemp Milk since 13 months. He is now 19 months. He loves it! He was on Elecare formula, which is like liquid gold and it smells terrible, so I am sure he is very happy to have something that tastes good for his milk now! He has a milk protein allergy and I am with you about the soy products, so I never introduced him to soy milk. We gave him oat milk and added Flax Oil for the added omega-3 fatty acids for about a month or two until I found hemp milk. I actually think it tastes alright, but given that I was raised on cow’s milk, it is hard to get used to any other “milk” flavor. I will be going dairy free here shortly, as I am about to give birth to my second child and I am hoping to have nursing go smoother than it did with my first. (I am also praying she doesn’t have a milk protein allergy!) I toy with the idea of having her switch to Hemp milk after 12 months…I guess I have a while on that. Thanks for the post!

Heather K.

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April 25, 2013 @ 7:23 pm

I love this piece. I am a pediatrician and have a 9 month old son who cannot tolerate dairy. Mostly he still drinks breastmilk but when I am at work he guzzles down bottles with Dad. I too agree that the estrogen-mimicry of soy is a bit worrisome. He’s loved coconut milk since he was ~6mo’s old. I am excited to try hemp milk with him. I agree the nutrient content is much closer to that of mamalian milk. Word of caution on almond milk: the phytic acid can affect the way the body absorbs calcium. Very important in a growing baby and for women of all ages! It does taste great and I use it everyday in my tea but make sure you or your LO’s get calcium from somewhere else!

Try the Pacific brand of hemp milk. It’s one of the only hemp milk brands that does not contain carrageenan. This overly processed/modified seaweed product is not supposed to be good for you. I also like that Pacific used brown rice syrup instead of evaporated cane juice. I’m actually thinking of giving up commercially made hemp milks and just buying hemp hearts and blending them with water myself.
Anyway, I agree that hemp milk is the best non-dairy milk I’ve found

In regards to the Pacific Brand Hemp Milk, read the labels because only the all natural Original does not contain carrageenan. The others do.

Linsey Jo

guest

December 15, 2013 @ 12:32 am

Also in regards to Pacific Brand Hemp Milk…I just looked at our all natural Original “unsweetened” and it does contain carrageenan. I haven’t researched the risks/benefits of carrageenan but I just wanted others to know that the original “unsweetened” does have it in.

We have had my daughter on hemp milk (as well as coconut and almond which she has been tested for is not allergic) while transitioning from breastmilk. She cannot have dairy due to MSPI. We mix Metagenics Ultracare powder (medical grade food) with the milk which helps the taste a bit. I prefer almond milk but I like the nutritional value of the hemp milk for her.

Josh

guest

December 31, 2013 @ 4:29 pm

It is soooo easy to make your own milk from hemp, rice or whatever. You can purchase organic hemp seeds online or from Costco. Soak them, then blend them. You can strain out any solid parts left over and drink that yourself. It is truly a shame to buy milk in a box. Those milks contain other ingredients to keep them fresh. Make it yourself. It takes practically no time. Word.

@Mrs. Bee: Thank you so much for this post. I didn’t know how valuable it would end up being to me! Xander’s allergic to dairy and based on your insight, I think I’m leaning towards giving him hemp milk once he turns one!

M.

guest

February 4, 2014 @ 1:54 am

I don’t know if this has already been mentioned, perhaps it has, and my apologies if I’m repeating this. Hemp milk is NOT made from “the same thing as marijuana”. The United States, one of the few countries that has hemp growth illegal, has hemp and marijuana lobbed together as “the same” plant, when in fact, they are actually two different varieties: think sumac and poison sumac, are they the same? No, they are different, but in the same family. Hemp has no negligible THC in it. In fact, if you wanted to try to smoke it to obtain a high, you’d have to smoke approximately 12 hemp cigarettes in quick succession in order to even see anything nearing a psychoactive effect. Which, honestly, banning hemp growth because some idiot is going to TRY to get high off of something that would take not only a terrific feat in stupidity, but the type of persistence that says they are going to find a way to abuse things in a desperate attempt at a high regardless, is silly. If you think about it, you can get drunk drinking vanilla… and we don’t consider that hazardous. You don’t need to be 21 to purchase it, and if you wanted to guzzle down bottles of vanilla I’m an attempt to get drunk, well, you could. I advocate for hemp growth, it’s versatile… So versatile, and it’s incredibly healthy. It’s a weed, it’s pest resistant so it doesn’t need pesticides, it grows fast and is completely useable. Hemp grows in pretty much any soil, and deposits good things into it. It can be used as: bio-fuel, made into durable clothing, paper and paper products, milk, food, hemp-crete, hemp “wood” paneling, oil, beauty products, used as lotion, feed for livestock. We could, with hemp alone, decrease our dependence on foreign oil… cheaply! But we don’t because we’ve been taught to think that hemp and marijuana are the same thing; they’re not! I hope you’ll do more research of your own and pass the word on, because I truly feel the more people who are informed can help change the view, and misinformation about hemp; a truly amazing plant…

Johnny Williams

guest

March 13, 2014 @ 5:15 pm

When my 2 yr. old daughter, Maisie, stopped breast feeding the doctor of course recommended cow’s milk. Yet after doing the research i switched her to hemp milk, I trult believe the hemp plant is a gift from God. Aside from its other uses like medicine, textiles, shelter, fuel etc. , the complete and easily digestible proteins and perfect ratio of fatty acids and vitamin content makes this milk a no brainer. And I feel happy that with this wonderful food source my family is one step closer to getting away from an industry that uses life as a commodity for profit. Hemp milk, and the research ive done since has made me realize that the criminalization of this god given plant was corrupt from the get go. The more you seek truth, the more apparent the lies become. God didnt make a mistake on this one, people did.

Fabiola lopez

guest

July 23, 2014 @ 2:24 am

I was curious about this article because I have been giving my 15 m/o son hemp milk since he was 10 months. Before giving him hemp milk I tried goat milk, whole milk, multi grain milk, even rice milk, but the one milk he didn’t spit out was the hemp milk. It was a good transition from breast milk to hemp milk. I get it at Ralph’s its the only place I’ve seen it, you’d think I would be able to find it at one of those organic stores but the only place I find it at is Ralph’s. It is $3.99, a bit pricey so I am planning on buying it in bulk or make it myself. Other than that this was a good article its good to know I my son still gets the same benefits as whole milk.

Riss

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August 27, 2014 @ 11:24 am

I use hemp and soy 50/50 for my little angel! I keep telling people how good if an alternative hemp milk is and they just keep telling me I’m a crazy hippie! But they’ve never done the research so they’re the crazy ones!